OpenAI almost doubled its valuation from $86 billion to $157 billion on Wednesday after a $6.6 billion funding round, the biggest venture capital deal ever. The ChatGPT-maker raised more than Elon Musk’s xAI, which announced a funding round of $6 billion at a $24 billion valuation in May.
Thrive Capital led the round, with an investment of $1.3 billion. Fidelity, Nvidia, and SoftBank also invested, but Microsoft remains the startup’s largest corporate backer, adding $750 million in this round to its existing $13 billion investment. Apple was considering investing but decided not to in order to avoid future conflicts with OpenAI’s competitors, per Barron’s.
In the funding announcement, OpenAI stated that it has increased its weekly number of users to over 250 million, a 50 million jump from two months ago. ChatGPT has more than double the user base now than it did in November 2023.
OpenAI will use the funds to keep building AI tools and researching AI. The startup had a revenue of $300 million last month and is expecting $3.7 billion in revenue this year to $5 billion in losses.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Stefano Guidi/Getty Images
OpenAI has recently seen a wave of high-level departures, with OpenAI chief technology officer MIra Murati, vice president of research Barret Zoph, and chief research officer Bob McGrew, all leaving the company on the same day last week.
Related: ‘A Real Growing Up Moment For Me’: OpenAI’s 39-Year-Old CEO Says He Learned a Lot from Being Fired
